‘The Black Phone’ Review: Ethan Hawke in a Serial-Killer Movie with Some Nightmare Images but Less Fear Than Meets the Eye
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticEthan Hawke, in 30 years, has never portrayed a villain before, so it would be nice to say that in “The Black Phone” he not only plays a serial killer — one of those anonymous madmen who live in a one-story house of dingy brick with a dungeon in the basement — but that he makes something memorable out of it.
His mask is certainly disturbing. Hawke’s character, who is known as the Grabber, is a kidnapper of teenage boys, to whom he presumably does unspeakable things.
He drives a black ’70s van with the word Abracadabra written on the side of it, and when he pops out of the vehicle to yank his victims off the street, he’ll be wearing a magician’s hat or carrying some black balloons.
But it’s not until we see him in his home element that we take in the full hideous grandeur of that mask, which comes in removable sections and looks almost like it’s been chiseled in stone: sometimes it’s got a leering smile, sometimes a frown, and sometimes he just wears the lower half of it.
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